Out of the Blue
by omens
Summary: “Everyone’s going to tell you that you can’t do it alone, but lucky you that you won’t have to.” Justin/Alex
1. Chapter 1

**Name:** Chris

**Title:** Out of the Blue

**Fandom:** Wizards of Waverly Place

**Genre:** General

**Rating:** T

**Summary:** "Everyone's going to tell you that you can't do it alone, but lucky you that you won't have to." [Justin/Alex]

……

_shut the world away from here_

_drift to you, you're all I hear_

_- love remains the same, gavin rossdale_

……

"Of all the things you I expected you to say when I answered the phone," Alex said as she sat down in the hard plastic chair beside her older brother, "this was not what I expected."

Justin laughed, half hearted. "You should try hearing it from my end."

She didn't doubt that. As much of a shock as it was to her, it had to have a gazillion times worse for him.

"So, what's going on?" Alex asked. She took off her jacket and set it and her purse on the chair on the other side of her. "Have they come out and told you anything yet?"

He shook his head. "Nope, not yet." For the first time Alex noticed that his hands were shaking.

"Hey." She placed a hand on his where they were clasped on his knees. He looked up at her, anxiety all over his face and he gulped hard. "You okay?"

Standing up abruptly, Justin began to pace the length of the waiting room floor. He started wringing his hands and his breathing grew audibly labored. Even if Alex hadn't known her brother as well as she did she would have been able to tell that he was a wreck. Not that he didn't have every reason in the world to be.

"Justin, you're gonna wear a hole in the floor."

He stopped and turned to her, clearly annoyed. "Excuse me for being a little freaked out about the fact that I'm about to be a father."

Though she really didn't appreciate being snapped at, this was one time that Alex was willing to let Justin's attitude slide. Getting a phone call from a girl you had a drunken one night stand with at the beginning of the school year saying that she was on her way to the hospital to give birth, and that you were the father, had to throw a person for a loop.

"Justin, how can you be sure this baby is even yours? You don't even know this girl-she could just be trying to pin it on you because you're a nice guy." Alex walked over to the vending machine in the corner of the waiting room and waited for her soda to drop down. She popped it open and flicked her eyes up just in time to see her brother grimacing at her. "What?"

"You know," he said, "you didn't have to come all the way to Boston just to ridicule me. You could have just done that over the phone."

Rolling her eyes, she sat back down in the char she had vacated earlier and took a sip of her drink. "I came because, if it is your kid, I want to be here."

Justin paused. He hadn't been expecting her to say something like that and it threw him for quite a loop.

"Why?"

She shrugged. "I'd be an aunt. And there's no way you'd be able to hold it together on your own."

Alex had never really liked kids. No, she had never been able to tolerate kids. At all. And yet she had come to Boston, in the middle of the night, at the drop of a hat just for him. A huge lump formed of gratitude and affection lodged in Justin's throat.

Just then a door to the room directly across the hall opened and a girl that looks just the slightest bit familiar stepped out. He walked over to her and asked how Marjorie was doing.

"How is doing?" Placing a hand on her hip, the girl looked at him like he'd just asked her why she was wearing shoes or something. "She's 18 and terrified and her mother is nowhere to be seen, how do you think she's doing?"

Justin flinched visibly, and Alex jumped up from her seat and stalked over just in time for the girl to snort at Justin's request to see Marjorie.

"I think you've done enough."

Alex stepped between them. "Hey. That's enough."

She looked Alex up and down, sniffing dismissively. Looking at her shoulder at Justin, she sneered. "You brought a date to the hospital? Nice."

"I'm his _sister_," Alex hissed. "And you are done talking to him like that."

With a touch of pink in her cheeks, the girl stalked off, leaving a fuming Alex and befuddled Justin in her wake. Glaring at her retreating back, she turned her face up to her brother to find him gazing at her as if she were a stranger.

"What?"

"You just defended me," he said slowly.

Her eyebrows drew together, the definition of 'duh' and shrugged. "You may be a dork and a drag, but you're my drag, and no one talks to you that way. Except me," she added as an afterthought.

Patting his shoulder, she wandered off to try and figure a way to get up to the TV on the wall to change the channel and he stood there, staring after her.

……

Alex was woken abruptly when Justin stood up, and her head fell to the side from where she had dozed off and laid it on his shoulder.

She rubbed at her eyes. "What's goin' on?"

Justin shifted his weight and stared at the door where Marjorie was. Alex rolled her eyes. He looked like he was trying to channel Superman and use x-ray vision on the wood.

"I don't know," he said. "She was yelling a lot and then all of a sudden she just…stopped." Panic laced his voice and Alex slid her hand into his without thinking and wrapped her other hand around his forearm.

All of the comforting words in the world weren't going to help when Justin was so obviously scared and Alex knew that, so she squeezed Justin's hand and pressed closer to his side.

A loud cry pierced the air around them, and she squeezed his arm, laughing in relief. "Justin," she threw her arms around his neck, "you're a daddy."

Looking dazed, he raised his hands to her back on instinct and she grinned up at his reaction until a huge grin broke his face and he hugged her back, swinging her around the waiting room a few times.

"I'm a daddy," he repeated, beaming down at his sister like he had just won the lottery. "Alex," he took her hands in his, "I can never thank you enough for being here with me."

"Obviously." She smiled, a more genuine smile than she had smiled in so long. Something deep inside her heart warmed and glowed at seeing Justin so truly, genuinely happy.

The door opened and the same snotty girl from earlier stepped out wearing one of those gowns they always make people wear in hospitals on television and in the movies. Her face was set in a grim line and she approached Justin slowly. "Marjorie wants to talk to you," she said simply and then glared at Alex (who returned her look with one that was equally scathing) beside him. "Alone."

"Oh, um, okay." Justin placed his hand on Alex's elbow. "Alex, would you call Mom and Dad and let them know what's going on?"

She nodded, feeling like he was getting off easy somehow by not being the one to tell their parents that their perfect child had just become a father.

Alex found him twenty minutes later staring through the nursery window in the next hallway over. Their parents hadn't been very happy to hear the news that they were unexpectedly grandparents, or that she had gone to Boston by herself without telling them, but had assured her that they and Max were on the way.

"Hey, I've been looking all over for you." She came to a stop opposite him, not even glancing at the babies lined up on the other side of the glass in their little beds. "Mom and Dad are on their way, so get prepared."

Justin didn't answer. His forehead was pressed to the glass, a vacant expression on his face.

"Hello," she prodded. "Earth to Justin." Sighing, she looked over the babies, each one more wrinkled and red than the last.

Then, in the second to last bassinette in the third row, she saw him. It had to be. He looked too much like Justin not to be his son.

"Is that him?" She pointed to the baby through the glass and Justin nodded. An overwhelming feeling she couldn't identify flooded her belly and she felt her eyes begin to sting, knowing she was about to cry. "He…he looks just like you."

Justin huffed out a laugh. "Yeah."

But he still didn't look happy, not like he had earlier. The last time she'd seen her brother he had been ecstatic, more delighted than she had ever seen anyone and now…now he just basically looked like somebody had let the air out of his tires.

"Okay, what's up with you? You went from happy bunny to sad cashier at Blockbuster."

Running a hand over his hair in distraction, he sighed as if exhausted and leaned his back up against the glass. "The reason Marjorie didn't let me in the room while was because the adoptive parents were in there and they didn't want a scene while she was in labor."

"Adoptive parents?" She shook her head, positive she'd heard him wrong.

"Yeah. That's why she waited this long to tell me. She was worried I'd try to talk her out of it." Justin's face was fixed into a mask of pure disgust. "Can you believe that?"

"Well," she says tentatively, "would you…have tried to talk her out of it?"

His mouth drops open. She wants to take a step back and this is the first time, ever, that Alex has been somewhat scared of her brother. He looked so murderous right then that she wouldn't have been surprised if he started screaming at her.

"That's my son, Alex," he states in a flat, cold tone, "who I didn't even know existed until today. I can't just-"

He broke off, his voice cracking and leaving him unable to speak. Alex stepped forward and, full of bizarre nervousness energy, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, leaning her cheek against his chest.

"I'm sorry, Justin," she whispered. "This sucks."

"Yeah, it does."

Justin pulled back and she saw an older woman in scrubs with kind eyes standing there with a blue swathed bundle in her arms. Silently, she handed the baby over to Justin, who brought his arms up at once to cradle the infant against his chest.

A lump of emotion caught in Alex's throat as she watched her brother gazing down at his baby with nothing short of awe in his eyes. She reached her hand out and placed it gently on the baby's head, feeling his soft black hair under her fingers at the edges of the little knit cap he was wearing. Her heart skittered and caught, her chest weirdly tight. "Wow."

Chuckling, Justin looked at her. "I know, right?"

Taking in every detail of her nephew's (holy cow) teensy face with her artists' eye, Alex let her finger trace down his petal soft cheek and across his perfect bow shaped lips. "Can I?" she breathes before she can even think about it.

Looking surprised, Justin hands the baby over, positioning her hands just the right way. She was grateful for that, having never held a baby so little before.

She went rigid as the baby squirmed in her arms, stretching his tiny back and his mouth opened and closed a few times, his eyelids fluttering.

"Okay, I'm officially petrified here," she muttered. She thought newborns were supposed to just lie still and sleep, not wiggle around and cause the inexperienced people holding them to freak out.

Justin laughed and leaned over her shoulder to peer at the baby some more-not that Alex blamed him. She couldn't seem to pry her eyes away either. "You're fine, Alex." He placed a hand on the back of the baby's head, sighing. "It really puts things into focus, huh?"

She nodded.

They stood that way for a few more minutes, until Justin looked up and his face went stony. She turned her head and saw a woman in a power suit and pearls walking towards them.

"Mr. Russo, I thought I'd find you here." She looked back and forth between Justin and Alex and the baby, clearly disapproving. "I have some papers for you to sign."

Justin moves in front of Alex, blocking them from the woman (adoption agent she figured) with his body. Ever the protector. She places her own hand on the baby's head where Justin's had been and pulled him closer to her chest. The thought of someone taking Justin's son from him made her sick to her stomach.

"I already told you that I need some time to think," he said.

The woman clucked her tongue, making tut-tut noises under her breath. "Try and see reason here. The parents have already been through all this with Marjorie, they've been here for hours-"

Justin exploded, something inside of him reaching the breaking point and Alex took a step back, watching his shoulders shake. "I don't care. _They_ are not his parents, okay, and I don't care what you say. I know my rights and no one can adopt this baby without my say so."

Alex had never been so proud of her brother in her life.

"Leave," he said. "I want some time with my son and my sister."

Indignant and huffing, she walked away, Justin glaring at her retreating back.

"I may be mistaken here," Alex said, gigantic smile on her face, "but I think I just saw a hint of a spine there."

Justin rolled his eyes and Alex handed the baby back over to him. He started whimpering a little and Justin jiggled him against his chest. He quieted down immediately. Alex shook her head. It figured he would be a natural.

"I can't do it, Alex," he whispered after a few seconds. "I can't just hand my child over to strangers to raise." He looked up at her, face set and determined. "I can't give him up."

She had a feeling that was coming.

That didn't make it any easier though.

"Justin…you're in college. You live in a dorm with a Trekkie and work part time in the library. You can't raise a baby on your own and clearly baby mama in there isn't going to help you."

"I know," he said. "I know all that, Alex, but…he's mine."

She looked down, once more, at the little face revealed amongst the blanket and hat in Justin's arms. He was right. As always. The baby was a Russo and he belonged with them.

Nodding, she licked her lips. Touching the tip of her finger to the tiny button nose, she took a deep breath and looked at her big brother, who, for once, needed her help. "Okay. If you want to keep him and raise him, you should."

Justin's shoulders loosened and he pulled her into a hug with one arm. "Thank you, Alex," he murmured into her hair. "You don't know how much that means to me."

"I may have an inkling," she said. Spying the same woman with two other people who were undoubtedly the adoptive parents to be, she felt a wave of sadness for them (so not like her) and shook her head. "This is gonna get ugly, you realize that?"

He nodded. "But I don't care."

"Good. Cause you're in for a fight, Justin." She glared at the small group at the end of the hall, then banished them from her mind and focused all of her attention on Justin and the baby. "And I'm gonna fight with you."

He told her he was hoping she'd say that, and she felt a tidal wave of emotions she didn't want to think about. Because she needed to think for once in order to pull it off. "Everyone's going to tell you that you can't do it alone, but lucky you that you won't have to."

Justin's forehead crinkled and he rocked the baby a little bit. "What do you mean?"

As honest and sincere as she can manage, Alex crossed her arms over her chest and steeled her expression. He would do it for her and she had to, wanted to, do it for him. "If you're keeping him, you're going to need help. So I'm going to help you."

……


	2. Chapter 2

……

_he said, "daddies don't just love their children _

_every now and then, it's a love without end, amen"_

_- love without end, amen, george strait_

……

It took her the better part of an hour, but Alex finally convinced Justin that she was serious. Of course he threw the typical arguments at her-she expected nothing less-but she was prepared for them.

Alex always maintained that it helped to know your opponent.

"You're only 18, Alex," he started, prompting a "You're just 20," back at him.

"You're about to start college," was answered with "You're already in college. And it's a better one."

"You hate kids," was his next volley, and she lobbed it back, saying that she'd never really been around them. Maybe she would change her mind.

Sighing, Justin sank down onto the tile floor outside of the hospital nursery and dropped his head into his hands. Settling down beside him, Alex bumped his shoulder with hers. "You know," she said, "it's not often that I'm all selfless and caring. You shouldn't be trying to talk me out of it here."

With a wan smile, Justin looked up at her, cheek on his palm, and laughed. "Good point." His face sobered as he straightened his posture and he searched her eyes intently, too intently perhaps, and she fought against the urge to squirm. She was used to Justin doubting her and being skeptical, but this is different. This was a big deal and she really wanted to do this for him.

Yeah, she had no doubt that there would be days where she would regret the offer and want nothing more than to sleep in and stay out late and go to parties with her friends, but she would get over it.

"Alex, are you sure about this?"

She nodded; face set and confident in a way that she usually faked.

Pursing his lips, he made one last attempt to try and sway her. "What about school? You can't commute to Boston from NYU every day."

Alex was ready for that one. Grinning-mainly because she liked getting her way, especially when she knew it was a sure thing to begin with-she dug through her bag and handed him a letter she got the day before and hasn't even shown to Harper yet.

Maybe their Grandma was right. Perhaps there were signs.

Justin eyed the logo in the upper corner and just stared and stared at her until she got annoyed and smacked at his shoulder. "Stop that. Weirdo."

"I just…" His voice trailed off, and he ran his thumb over the flap of the envelope. Justin kept his gaze on the floor, though she doubted he was really looking at the ugly grayish linoleum. "This is a big commitment, Alex. It's going to be tough and I just don't want you to wake up some day regretting that you sacrificed your life for me."

As if offering to move to Boston and help him with the baby was going to be sacrificing her whole life. She kind of wanted to smack him again. Maybe kick him too, just for good measure. But she didn't. Only rolled her eyes and grunted in protest. "That's not gonna happen, Justin. I wouldn't be offering if I thought it would. Trust me."

The corners of his lips twitched, just enough to be noticeable, and it caused her to beam at him.

It didn't matter that the woman from the adoption agency was still at the end of the hall, scowling at them, or that Marjorie was most likely going to fight it tooth and nail to get Justin to go along with the plan she'd devised before he ever had an inkling, or even that their parents were probably going to go bananas. It was all pretty much irrelevant because when Justin smiled at her, Alex knew she was doing the right thing.

……

"Dominic Enrique?" Alex made a face, pursing her lips in distaste to match her crinkled nose. "Bit of a mouthful, don't you think?"

Justin grunted, wearing his best offended face. He put the pen down and held the paper up in front of his face, studying the words.

Laughing, Alex sat beside him and held out the cup of coffee she'd gotten him. "You can stare at it all you want, it won't help." She patted his shoulder, biting her bottom lip to keep the laughter she could feel bubbling up at the sight of his face on the inside.

He held the paper out a little further, titling his head to the side. "I don't see what's so wrong with it."

Alex took a bite of the sandwich she'd gotten from the hospital cafeteria, grimacing at the slight tang of the mayonnaise. She tossed it into the garbage can against the opposite wall and took a swig of her soda to wash the taste of stale hospital coffee out of her mouth. "It's just a lot of name for somebody roughly the size of a head of lettuce."

Justin frowned, whether at the name, or her likening his kid to produce, she wasn't positive, but she figured he should have been used to her comments so she shrugged and leaned against him, wanting to see if she could grab a few minutes of sleep. It'd been a long night.

"Has Dragon Lady been back by since I've been gone?"

"No, she must still be trying to break the news to Marjorie, or placate the adoptive parents." He picked the paperwork back up and began filling in the endless forms he'd gotten from the head maternity ward nurse when after he informed her that he was going to be taking the baby home with him. With a not so subtle look of surprise, she'd handed him over a whole forest's worth of papers that had to be filled in, signed, and dated before the baby could be released. "I haven't seen her since you made her spill her coffee on her suit."

Alex laughed. "I slipped."

"Of course."

They were sitting in a very short row of chairs directly across from the nursery window, Justin not wanting to be away from the baby. Alex secretly thought he was afraid that, if he left for even a second, the adoption agent or Marjorie's friend would sneak in and whisk the baby off. One of the nurses, a young woman in teddy bear scrubs, came around the doorframe with the baby in her arms. Justin jumped up immediately.

"Is everything okay?"

The nurse smiled, no exasperation or amusement at the panic in Justin's voice. She must have been used to neurotic new parents, therefore she had none of the mocking on her face that Alex did.

"Someone's hungry," she said, and shifted the squirming little boy into Justin's arms. "I thought you might want to do the honors." She gave him a bottle and instructed him on how to hold the baby, how much formula to let him have before burping. With another soft smile, she left them and Justin eased back down in his chair super slowly.

The look on face was too priceless and Alex whipped her phone out of her pocket to snap a quick picture before he had the chance to notice. He glanced up and she grinned. "Posterity."

She sat beside him, leaning over to peer into the little face. Warmth settled in her stomach that felt differently than anything she had ever felt before and the edges of her mouth quirked up, just a touch. "Who'd have thought your kid would be so cute?" she teased, making him shake his head. The baby's eyes were still closed, the only sign that he was actually awake was his little jaw moving as he sucked on the bottle.

"You know," she said, softly, not wanting to rattle the baby, "no offense or anything, but he really doesn't look like a Dominic."

Tilting his head to the side, Justin regarded his son in his arms. "No?"

She shook her head. "Nope."

A deep sigh rumbles out of his chest and the baby wriggles against the movement. His little eyes blinked open to peer up at Justin, sleepy, but curious. One tiny hand found its way out of the blanket he was swaddled in and waved, like he was trying to reach up and touch his father's face. Leaning down, Justin held his face parallel to his son's and a huge grin broke his face when the little fingers found the tip of his nose.

Just as quickly, the baby lowered his arm and once again looked asleep, save for the fact that he was still eating.

Alex laughed, a snort coming out of her mouth. "Definitely not a Dominic."

"Dominic means belonging to God," Justin told her. "It's a good, strong name. And Enrique was our grandfather's name."

"I know that," she said. She rolled her eyes. Even after being apart for so long, it seemed her brother still couldn't stop correcting her-not even, maybe especially when, she wasn't wrong to begin with. "I'm just saying…." She trailed off, studying the small features. The name runs over and over and over in her mind, getting jumbled. "Ricky."

"What?"

Alex let her finger run down the super soft, pink skin of the baby's cheek. "He looks like a Ricky." She offered up, and shrugged, raising her eyes up to his.

"Ricky…" Justin glances again at his son. A small smile spread across his face. "I think you're right."

……

Around dawn, while Justin was still filling out paperwork and Alex was leafing through a year's old copy of Cosmo pilfered from the ER waiting room, the rest of their family finally come barreling through the doors of the maternity ward, looking very harried and frazzled.

Which, given that it was a quarter past five in the morning, was understandable?

Theresa, dressed in a silk button down blouse and pajama bottoms, reached her two oldest children first and threw an arm around each of them. "I'm sorry it took us so long to get here," she huffed, out of breath, "there was an accident on the freeway just outside of the city."

Max collapsed into one of the plastic chairs beside his sister, groaning over a yawn. "There any caffeine around here? Or sugar."

No one replied, instead focusing on the actual situation at hand and not Max's lack of focus. Jerry clapped a hand over his son's shoulder, face drawn. "How are you doing, Justin?"

He shrugged. "I'm okay now that its all settled in."

"When can we see the baby?" Theresa can't contain the excitement in her voice, or the worry. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

Standing up, Alex raps on the glass of the nursery window and signals to the nurse in the teddy bears that she and Justin had been dealing with all night. "It's a boy," she said.

Catching on, Justin steps around his parents and gets to one side of the nursery door at the same time the nurse came to stand at the other end. "And you can see him now."

"Oh." Hand fluttering against her chest, Theresa started to cry as soon as Ricky was secure in Justin's grasp. Sniffling uncontrollably, she placed one hand against the back of his head, the other on Justin's arm. "He's beautiful."

Jerry squeezed Justin's shoulder, his eyes too watery. For his part, Max stood long enough to see the baby and then sat back down, falling asleep within a second of his eyes sliding shut.

Justin made a move towards his mother. "You wanna…?"

She wiped her eyes quickly, and took off her coat-her good one she wore for church and special occasions-and handed it off to her husband to take the baby from Justin. Humming under her breath, she rocked slowly from side to side. Ricky yawned, opened his eyes to see who was holding him, and then closed them back.

"That's about the extent of his activity so far," Justin quipped, dry humor lacing his voice.

"Well that's normal," Jerry replied. "Newborns only wake up long enough to let you know they either need food or a clean diaper. Or that's how it seems."

Alex laughed. "Like Max until he was six."

Max snorted loudly from the chair. "I heard that."

She rolled her eyes. It wasn't as if she had tried to be subtle.

After a few moments of Theresa's cooing, and Jerry's attempts not to turn into a six foot marshmallow (he failed) they finally asked Justin about Marjorie.

A pretty fair question as they had never even heard of her until they got the news that she was the mother of their first grandchild.

Justin sighed, looking uncomfortable. He shot his eyes over to his sister in a silent plea for help. She stepped over and took the baby from him. She had long ago noticed that Justin seemed better able to talk without bumbling when he could use his hands. "She, um, well…she's okay. I went in and saw her right after…and yeah, she's doing alright."

Brow wrinkling in confusion, Theresa rubbed a hand over his forearm. "That's good to hear, but can you tell us about her? What's she like, how did you meet?"

"You can't blame us for being curious," Jerry added, "considering she's going to be raising our grandson."

"Actually," Justin began, slowly, calculating his every syllable, "she's not."

They looked at each other, both clearly confused, and then looked back at their son. "What do you mean?"

"She wants to put him up for adoption," he states flatly, eyes sliding sideways towards Alex.

Nodding, Theresa rubbed her hand once more over the baby's head as Alex held him. "That makes sense I guess."

"Really?" Alex all but demanded and her father nudged her for her tone. She never thought her mother would fall on that side of the fence.

"I can't say I'm happy about it," her mother continued, "but you're both so young." She turned her gaze to Justin, all sympathy and maternal instinct. "Maybe it is the right thing to do."

Jerry added his own opinion to the conversation, the same as his wife's incredibly enough. "I agree. Raising a baby is hard enough for two people, doing it on your own is a hundred times more difficult. He deserves a good home."

"He's going to have a good home," Justin snapped. His parents both took a step back, clearly rattled by the coldness in their son's voice. Max finally stood from the chair, eyes wide. Only Alex seemed unfazed. But then, she'd been hearing Justin use that tone on the adoption agent all night.

And honestly, she was starting to develop a new respect for her brother.

Not that she would ever tell him that though.

He shifts his eyes between his parents, stone faced and determined, his posture ramrod straight and self assured. "He's coming home with me."

"What?" All three of them held the same disbelief in their voices, the same incredulity.

"My son," Justin said, "is coming home with me. I've signed all the papers, filed the birth certificate. He's mine. And no one else is going to raise him."

"To a dorm?" Theresa asked slowly.

Faltering for the first time since his initial panic, Justin wavered on his feet. Then he shook his head and set his jaw, more resolute than ever. "If I have to."

"And after that?" Jerry stepped forward, laid a hand on his son's shoulder. Casting a glance at the baby in Alex's arms, he squeezed his daughter's shoulder, his eyes on her full of gratitude and surprise, and a touch of admiration that left her feeling somewhat embarrassed. "Justin, how can you take care of a baby on your own?"

"He's not going to," Alex stepped closer to her brother's side, some invisible force tugging her next to him, to defend him. "He's gonna have help."

Theresa wrapped an arm around her daughter, rubbing her hand down her arm before it came to rest on, once again, on the baby's head. "Honey, I know you want to stand up for your brother, but-"

Alex stepped away from her mother's touch, moving even closer to Justin, their bodies in line front to back. She could feel Justin come closer to her, the two of them, for once, forming a united front.

"I'm not going to NYU," Alex informs her parents, fighting a cringe as their faces fall, partly because she knows they're expecting the worst to come after that. Inhaling heavily and shakily, with Justin's hands on her shoulders, she goes on. "I'm going to the New England Institute of Art, here in Boston."

A few seconds of palpable silence follow, and Theresa looked between her husband and her two eldest children, speechless for once.

"And," Alex continued, spurred on by the weight and warmth in her arms, "I'm going to live with Justin. I'm going to help him raise the baby."

……

_**This chapter was supposed to be longer, but things happen. : ) Sorry. **_


End file.
